


this place is set to break

by aftermillennia



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Communication, Death, Dreams, Family, Forgiveness, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, soul communication dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27455581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aftermillennia/pseuds/aftermillennia
Summary: “After that? I don’t think so,” he says, laughing at Andromache’s protests as he tends the fire for a moment more before dropping the stick at his side. He jerks his chin over towards the empty bedroll across from him. “Let’s wait for her return. She’ll like this one.”Andromache faces Lykon, the bedroll kept firmly in her periphery; the scream is tickling the back of her throat now.“She’s not coming back.”(Andy dreams and Lykon is there to greet her.)
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Lykon
Comments: 12
Kudos: 42





	this place is set to break

**Author's Note:**

> This is very sad but hopefully a little cathartic. Lykon lore is my white whale and I hope with my whole heart that we get more of it in the future. That being said, two things I would like to point out: 1. I'm a white writer and 2. the research I tried to do in regards to movie!Lykon wasn't very fruitful so if there's anything here that is inaccurate or is insensitive/offensive please let me know and I will rectify that immediately.

“Are you nodding off on me, Andromache?” 

Andromache blinks; the world before her is dark save for the stars overhead and a fire pit within arms reach. She sits on a bedroll, the cool earth slowly leaching into her linen trousers— eternally uncomfortable but forever familiar. Three horses are secured to a mangled tree stump several yards away and there is a bedroll to her side with a dark bow propped against a pack. She turns her head towards the voice, fingers twisting into the fabric over her knees until they're white knuckled fists at the sight of his face. 

Lykon’s forehead grows increasingly pinched at her silence but his smile is endlessly sweet as reaches over and he cups the curve of her shoulder. His hand is rough, centuries of wielding a polearm etched into his palm, and Andromache swallows roughly around the lump in her throat at the familiar calluses that catch against her skin. 

“Your stories always did leave something to be desired,” Andromache croaks and she wants to shake loose, claw at her throat where a scream or a sob is trapped and suffocating. Lykon shakes his head with a sarcastic little _ha, ha_ before turning back to the fire with a glint in his eyes. He picks up a stick and pokes at the fire, shifting the brush and wood until the flames crackle and spits sparks into the night. The fire casts him in an interplay of shadow and light and his wide grin is unerringly bright. He’s _here_ and Andromache’s fists tremble as the enormity of her grief feels like a collapsing star in her chest. 

She clears her throat and it feels raw with each breath but she greedily inhales because he’s _here_ and she can smell the germander that always lingered on his skin long after bathing. “Start from the beginning?”

Lykon’s dark eyes flick over to her and they seem to catch and keep the firelight, melting with the curve of his smile as he taps his chin with his free hand in mock-contemplation. 

“After that? I don’t think so,” he says, laughing at Andromache’s protests as he tends the fire for a moment more before dropping the stick at his side. He jerks his chin over towards the empty bedroll across from him. “Let’s wait for her return. She’ll like this one.”

Andromache faces Lykon, the bedroll kept firmly in her periphery; the scream is tickling the back of her throat now.

“She’s not coming back.” 

Each word catches on her teeth and her tongue is thick in her mouth. Her eyes burn terribly and she blinks back up at the stars; the fear that he will have disappeared when she looks back grows heavy but settles at his easy, even breaths. She pulls her gaze back to earth when Lykon hums consideringly, head bowed as he scratches behind his right ear. Andromache smiles shakily despite herself at the habit. Lykon was the most thoughtful, the most patient of all of them; every word, every action deliberate and turned over again and again until polished. 

Lykon raises his head after several long beats and the ever present kindness lining his face has been tempered by the easy conviction in his voice, “You’re wrong, Andromache.”

The grief that’s weighed heavily in the pit of her stomach for centuries sours, twists harshly at his words. Her teeth ache with how hard her jaw is clenched but she pries them open to snipe back, “And you’re _dead_.”

Lykon doesn’t flinch at the barb but Andromache does. Lykon was the best of them while Andromache was decidedly _not._

There’s a dull throb building at her temples and she rubs a hand across her forehead, eyes clenching shut as it trembles. She only registers the tears running down her cheeks after they’ve dampened the scarf around her neck; a gentle hand on her knee loosens the tears into a flood. 

“ _Sorry_ for all of it— Lykon, I’m so sorry—” Andromache grips his hand between hers and rests her forehead against his knuckles, body wracked with heaving, ugly sobs. He drapes himself over her shoulders in a loose hold and Andromache feels the culmination of the many centuries she’s been without him all at once. She claws at every part of him within reach and clutches onto him, gasping wetly into the curl of his body against hers, “I miss you so fucking much, little brother.”

Lykon is rubbing slow circles across her back and each pass over the base of her neck ends with a tap of two of his fingers; a reminder to exhale. Andromache does—quaking, tear-filled breaths—but the next inhale is easier as is the one that follows. His breath skates across her shoulders when he says, “I know. But there is nothing to be sorry for.”

He pulls back and when Andromache sits up they are in the safehouse in Lisbon; the walls are worn but patches of a deep maroon paint lingers and the only light in the room is from an aged streetlight outside the window across from her. There’s a scuffed up second, third, and fourth hand coffee table in front of her with a few of Joe’s pencils tied together with a rubber band and Booker’s favorite pack of cigarettes sits half empty next to a makeshift ashtray. The ground beneath her is softer and she reaches down, skims her palms across the rug that Nicky found sometime in the 19th century. 

“I do not have any regrets, Andy.”

She looks up and lets out the sound of a wounded animal.

Lykon’s hair is cropped shortly, a row of silver piercings along the shell of his right ear, and his jaw sports a close beard. He’s wearing dark grey joggers tucked into scuffed boots and a dark blue sweater that’s rolled above the elbow where she can see tattoos along his forearms in the low light. He looks so _right_ , belonging so completely to the here and now of her life.

The sharp line of his jaw glints in the streetlight. “She never left.”

Andy’s face crumples, and her eyes flutter closed in exhaustion. “Lykon—”

At his silence she opens her eyes and his face is unchanging, placid in his conviction. Her pulse ratchets up with every passing second that he sits and stares at her. It’s wishful thinking, more potent and poisonous than the malaise that’s plagued the last century of her life but she leans forward even still. 

“She never left. What happened to Quỳnh is not your fault,” Lykon’s eyes are shining with tears and his voice is thick, “and my undoing is not yours to carry either.”

Andy swallows, throat clicking and reaches a shaking hand out to him which he immediately takes. She croaks out, “I miss you more than I can bear.”

The tears crest, falling down his cheeks and Andy gives in and pulls him into a tight embrace. He melts into her arms and Andy remembers how much he sought out this comfort from her, from the both of them. She skims her lips across his temple before clutching him even closer, hand cupping the back of his head. His heartbeat drums against her own and she buries her face in his neck, inhales and catches the faintest trace of soap with germander and smiles. She pulls back enough from their tangled embrace to bring their foreheads together, hands cradling his cheeks.

“I carry those figurines you carved in my go-bag,” her voice is low, trapped quietly in the space between them and she catches his tears with the brush of her thumbs. “Everywhere I go, they go.”

It’s hard to breathe and Andy struggles past the lump in her throat, blinking away the fresh wave of her own tears, “You are always, _always_ with me.”

Lykon gathers her hands in his and places them over his heart.

Andy blinks her eyes open to a water stained ceiling and the hammering of her heart against an uneven mattress. Shifting to her side, she looks across the room and sees Nile stretched out, lax against her own misshapen mattress, her green bonnet a pop of color amidst the faded white of the worn down room. Andy props herself up on an elbow, sees Nicky and Joe from their bed closest to the door; Joe’s face is tucked against the back of Nicky’s neck and his palm is against Nicky’s heart where it cradles him to Joe’s chest. 

She sighs and deflates against the bed to the even breaths of her family surrounding her. It’s early morning, far from sunrise, and she reaches down for the bag tucked beneath the bed frame and gingerly unzips a small pocket. Andy tucks her hand inside and skims her fingers across carved wooden beaks, ears, tails. She bites the inside of her cheek, pushing away the tightening of her chest as blood hits her tongue; she closes the pocket and rolls onto her back. 

She layers her hands over her heart, closes her eyes, and dreams wide awake.

 _She never left._

_You are always,_ always _with me._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Here's your reminder that you are irreplaceable, you are not alone, and you are very, very loved. 
> 
> [@aftermillennia](https://aftermillennia.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


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